


Here at the end of all things.

by shihadchick



Category: due South
Genre: M/M, apoca-fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-14
Updated: 2010-05-14
Packaged: 2017-10-09 10:49:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/86459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shihadchick/pseuds/shihadchick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A very literal apocalypse, some time after the end of Call of the Wild.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here at the end of all things.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks are due to both [](http://rhythmsextion.livejournal.com/profile)[**rhythmsextion**](http://rhythmsextion.livejournal.com/) and [](http://izzybeth.livejournal.com/profile)[**izzybeth**](http://izzybeth.livejournal.com/) for their sterling beta work, and for pointing out whenever things got excessively "omg emo tear of DOOM"-y. Additionally, in the best traditions of due South I've played fast and loose with the laws of physics, so please just remember - 'that's not important!' Also, title shamelessly stolen from dialogue in _Return of the King_, mostly because it's the one line 'end of the world' always sets to echoing in my head.

At first they don't notice when it gets colder. It's supposed to be spring soon, but the lines between the seasons are never clear-cut up there, nothing to depend on. They've both nearly adjusted now as it is; Ray's even built up more subcutaneous fat, not much, but just enough armour, bulked up between chapped skin and bone. The quick glances that are enough to garner evidence of this fact afford Fraser much relief, something he keeps from Ray just as he does the other glances, the ones that aren't about surviving.

And then it gets colder still, too cold for snow, and the Northern Lights are starting to look a little less like an aurora and a little more like comet trails. Like contrails.

They head south, have been for a few days now, ever since it became obvious that something - something big - is not right. Get as far south as they can manage before the cold overtakes them, icing up nearly everything in their path. They're lucky; they make it to Fraser's old cabin, the one he and Vecchio had rebuilt several years ago, with the live tree that forms part of the foundation, a touch that had always struck Fraser as appropriately Homeric. Little more than the framing and basic insulation had been finished, really, but it's enough. Just enough. They bring in snowmelt for water and huddle around the radio, Dief whining anxious between their ankles.

A week later the radio is dead all the time and they're under every fur they've been able to scrounge, every blanket they were carrying. With the ice thickening on the trees daily, it's almost too hard to cut the wood, especially when every breath is an icy stab at the lungs and the sheer exertion of moving outdoors burns up what little caloric intake they've been maintaining.

Even the animals most attuned to the climate are starting to drop now, freezing to death or slow with near starvation. They manage a couple of lucky caribou, caught dragging distance from the cabin, and that keeps the three of them going a little longer.

The first raven is a startlement. Perched impossibly on branches bowed to the ground by the weight of water, eyeing them with altogether too much intelligence, even for a bird. It is joined by a mate, cataloguing the feeble humans, head tilted to expose one bright eye. The sight tugs sharply at memory, something he read once, years ago. Something in his grandparents' library, but it's gone in a flutter of glossy black feathers and a harsh cry. More practically, Fraser wonders how it can fly, still. What it's eating. If it's the last bird he'll ever see. The forest is so very quiet, now.

The wolves are getting bigger. Somehow finding food, it seems, despite it all. They beg Dief to join them, to try, see if he can survive at least, and it's the nearest Fraser comes to breaking. But Dief refuses to leave, clearly denying the option, growling at Ray for the first time in years as he tries to coax him to the door. Just launches himself tiredly into Fraser's lap, teeth carefully caught in just the outer sleeve of Ray's jacket as he drags him closer as well. Fraser buries his face in his fur, chest aching with the swallowed sobs, and Ray's arm is heavy at his shoulder, head drooping as he leans closer, a many- limbed foetal curl. There's a boundless comfort in their fellowship, and if this is it, then Fraser's glad to have the two of them at his side. Glad he's not out there alone and unknowing. He starts to voice the sentiment once, but Ray shakes his head roughly, a tiny smile of understanding cutting the observation off. Fraser supposes it's because Ray has more to lose than he does, has family still, a history of more than simple casual acquaintances. Knows with a deepening ache that for all intents and purposes, the entire world now is the three of them. Which only goes to prove one should be very, very careful what one wishes for.

The snow's deep, but the temperature had dropped so far, so fast that, really, it's only drifted a few feet high up against the cabin. Drifted and then got harder and harder, throwing off a sick glitter of scattered light when the sun's directly overhead.

In the darkness, there's a gun, an ounce of lead for the very end, for each of them, though they have not discussed more than the bare possibility. Despite the dire situation, it's still not something they can bring themselves to consider. Each of them both too honourable to go first and afraid enough not to want to be last, to be left alone even for seconds. They still venture out - just as far as the porch - once a day, taking care of physical needs a hand's-breadth apart, too dangerous to be any further now, and damn propriety or shame to somewhere even worse than this hell.

Not long afterwards, the door ices shut.

The cabin felt close before, now it's nearly suffocating. They deal with the biological necessities, and to Fraser's surprise (just a little of it) Ray copes remarkably well. Doesn't rage and fume like he'd expected, just nods (too cold to do anything else) and makes a hoarse joke about musk-ox before shuffling back to the corner where their nest of blankets is. It started out two separate nests, but that was ten degrees and the last scraps of reactive hyper-masculinity ago. Now they're mixed together, man, man and dog (wolf), tumbled under fur and hide and blankets. Shivering, talking when the weak sun is overhead, chattering teeth and hopelessly clutching limbs the rest of the time.

They consider chipping the ice away from the lone window, but surmise that even though Ray could wriggle out (and he could, he could now, the spare stark outlines of him are an agony to the eye.) But all that would gain them is cold and cruel wind, and if it's just a matter of time then better to be on their terms.

Sometimes they sleep, taking it in shifts to make sure they'll wake up again. The urge to just give in and sleep had been getting stronger daily, the body's feeble attempt to stave off the inevitable, reaction to the cold. Voice cracking, Ray reminds Fraser about the hypnosis attempts and pokes his shin (long underwear, sweatpants) with his toe (three pairs of socks all one-over-the-other, rotated irregularly) and says no wonder he's calm. Fraser wonders how Ray misses the panic, the terror (the responsibility, he got Ray into this, he did, despite those last reports that this wasn't some freak over-long winter storm, that this was the _world_) all the guilt hiding behind his eyes. Probably, he admits, it's because if Ray lets him lose control, suggests it as a possibility... then he just might. Will.

Somehow, the chimney stays clear of obstruction. Whether by good design or simply good luck, the majority of smoke from the fire makes it out. Some of it does collect around the eaves, staining the wood, giving illusory warmth in the comforting fug. It makes it more bearable, somehow, though much more and they would have trouble breathing.

They don't see it, but they feel when it happens, when something swallows the sun.

Despair rears above them then, would have taken them all, staved off only by the desperate clutch of joined hands, the rasping echo of another person's breath in the room, against the exposed planes of one's face.

There are candles, not many now, and an oil lamp. They last maybe two days, because in an unspoken agreement neither of them can bear to let the light leave, not entirely. Not anymore. Somewhere, a wolf bays incessantly, snapping and snarling, and those packs that remain bay in response. Diefenbaker is silent, conserving his strength for his chosen pack.

It's then Fraser knows, remembers. Not in fire, but in ice.

Occasionally, the cabin shakes, icicles shattering from the eaves onto the permafrost not far below, a crystalline counterpoint to the dim far off battles. In broken cities far away, the dead walk, while up in the frozen north, the last of their fire goes out.

Chill settles into the walls, into their bones, a deeper throb than ever before, stealing away will and motion in a heavy fog.

Ray's mouth is the only point of warmth left to Fraser in this world now, a brief incandescence, their connection making light and fragile heat for tiny heartfelt moments, too precious a final discovery to even breathe a regret for not knowing sooner.

Fraser wraps his arms ever more tightly around Ray, an uneven lump under their bedding, fingers numb and too cold to even shiver, lips pressed just below his earlobe, and in the last time, with the remains of their awareness, whispers that he loves him, hears the echo, reaching out. Impossibly, they are still speaking, though not all of the words are out loud, in the cracked hollow voices left to them and the rough touch of weakened limbs. Ray's eyes close as the candle dies, barely breathing as he begins to drift, as with the last shredded fragments of comprehension, compelled by duty to explain the impossible, Fraser lifts his chin from where it is tucked against Ray's collarbone and tells him about Ragnarok.

The silence comes, not long after, the silence that is the beginning and ending of the worlds.

Sheltered under Yggdrasil, the World Tree, two forms awake as the seas recede. And as they reach for each other, the bonds of the old world slip free, releasing life into the new.

 

The End.

 

[And, just finally, a useful link for anyone who didn't get much Norse mythology in school/whereever, as my betas pointed out to me that I'm rather mythology fixated and not everyone else is: [R is for Ragnarok](http://www.pantheon.org/articles/r/ragnarok.html)]


End file.
